The Sunday Word: Maine Edition

The First Family seemingly has done its best to take in much of what the area in and around Acadia National Park has to offer before President Obama heads back to the grind of Washington. The Times’s Sheryl Gay Stolberg has the lowdown on some of the events on the Obamas’ agenda, including a short stop at a lighthouse.

The Spill: Saturday marked another day without oil spewing from BP’s blown-out well into the Gulf of Mexico, The Times’s Henry Fountain reports, adding that there is some question about whether the well will be reopened to continue containment measures.

“In some cases, investigators ran their own tests, tracked down witnesses and did complicated technical calculations,” the Post found. “In others, they relied heavily on information and witness interviews provided by companies. Once their findings were forwarded to agency officials for review, many probes resulted in small fines or none at all.”

Palin Endorses…Sarah Palin has not been shy in getting behind Republican candidates this midterm cycle, often choosing to back women — think Nikki Haley in South Carolina, for example. But as The Times’s Jeff Zeleny finds, the former Alaska governor is also getting pushback from some on the right, who feel politics is driving her choices in endorsements.

Tea Party Caucus? So suggests Rand Paul — one of those candidates endorsed by Ms. Palin. But according to The Washington Post, some Republicans, while appreciative of the movement’s energy, are also a bit concerned about what Tea Party-backed candidates might do in Washington.

“Some Republicans worry that tea-party candidates are settling too comfortably into their roles as unruly insurgents and could prove hard to manage if they get elected,” Shailagh Murray writes.

Disclose Denied? Politico takes a look at the state of play for the campaign finance legislation known as the Disclose Act — another measure that has passed the House and is having trouble making its way through the Senate. Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, has promised to bring the bill to the floor, but Republicans in the chamber seem unimpressed with the legislation — even John McCain, whose name is prominently associated with a well-known campaign finance bill.

According to Meredith Shiner, House Democrats find this most bothersome because the party is basically united on how to approach this particular issue.

Midterm Madness: The Times’s Peter Baker looks into the hullabaloo that followed Robert Gibbs’ recent assertion that enough seats are in play for the Democrats to lose the House in the upcoming midterm elections. The financial legislation that just passed may be more consequential, Mr. Baker writes, but Washington loves to talk about a good political spat.

Elsewhere, Politico’s Alexander Burns examines the two debates that Mr. McCain and his primary challenger, former Representative J.D. Hayworth, just had in Arizona –- and finds the incumbent pointed much of his criticism toward the president instead of his opponent.

Biden Gets Six Figure Bill: The Federal Election Commission has found that Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s 2008 presidential campaign operation owes the federal government more than $219,000 for accepting excessive contributions and reporting an incorrect amount for a trip on a private plane. The Times’s Robert Pear found the F.E.C. report suggests the Biden campaign was a little sloppy with its books, but members of the vice president’s staff said the contributions that were over the legal limit amounted to less than 1 percent of what the campaign raised.

President Obama drew criticism on Thursday when he said, “we don’t have a strategy yet,” for military action against ISIS in Syria. Lawmakers will weigh in on Mr. Obama’s comments on the Sunday shows.Read more…